Friday, April 20, 2012

Day 5: An Unexpected Twist

#2 was invited to a friend's house to play and will be there for dinner.  I said it was OK, but only let him drink water and he can have a late snack using his food when he gets home.  #1 isn't home to witness this negotiation.  Shhhhhhhh!

As far as our budget goes, this is the most challenging time of the month for us and I have made it even tighter by putting more money in savings.  We got out of debt on Leap Day and now the goal is to have $3,000 in savings by next month.  We can do the VA loan and I'm hoping that will be enough to satisfy the bank.  If not, we will have to rent a house.  Either way, we will need at least that much.  We have been living in the same two bedroom apartment for almost ten years and we have had our financial ups and downs.  We thought we were going to live here for six months and then move.  I just realized the other day that this is the longest I have lived at any residence my entire life.  I grew up in one neighborhood as a child, but we lived in a few different houses.  My husband moved a lot because his dad was in the Air Force, so it's strange for both of us that this apartment has been our home for so long.

Today was payday, but it's also the day I pay all of our bills.  I was pretty dang pleased that our electric bill was $52 lower than last month and relieved once again that we don't have to make that credit card payment, but then I remembered the water/sewer/garbage bill that our landlord recently added to our expenses along with our rent increase, so that left us in a little better position than we would have been.  With gas at $4.25 per gallon though, that wasn't going to leave us with a lot for groceries, so I took an inventory of what we have and made a meal plan for the next two weeks.

I bought a ginormous block of cheese from Cash and Carry for about $12 (five pounds).  Well be eating a lot of grilled cheese.  I have onion, potatoes, eggs, and bacon.  I'll make those into a breakfast casserole.  We have tortillas and refried beans to make burritos, three bags of pasta, at least a few jars of pasta sauce, lots of mozzarella cheese, a little bit of chicken I can use in jambalaya (I'll just need to buy more onion and smoked sausage and that will feed us for a couple days), and a huge pork roast from Cash and Carry will feed us for four days.  I think we're going to do OK and I already set aside #3's thirty-three dollars so I don't accidentally spend it.  The boys' budget challenge is making me even more conscientious about what I'm spending and using!

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